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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to